[HN Gopher] After years of setbacks, NASA's SLS moon rocket is r...
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After years of setbacks, NASA's SLS moon rocket is ready to fly
Author : Hooke
Score : 34 points
Date : 2022-08-27 18:03 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| kristianp wrote:
| https://archive.ph/fO73G
| panick21_ wrote:
| Well its ready to fly as in, one test flight. It will take 2-4
| years until it will fly a second time.
|
| One of the biggest issues with SLS (besides cost) is the launch
| rate. It will limit the NASA for a long time.
| Aloha wrote:
| Launch cost is almost certainly a function of budget - if you
| want more launch, apply more budget.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Well partially, but it would require huge infrastructure
| investments to get those launch rates up much. And those
| items have absurdly long lead times (partially by design).
|
| The RS-25E (non-reusable SSME) is incredibly complex, and you
| are not gone mass produce them anytime soon. Even starting a
| very limited production line cost billions.
|
| So sure with infinite budget many things are possible, but
| they are simply not going the happen. The rocket is simply
| not designed for high launch rates.
| jiggawatts wrote:
| You forgot the launch _cost!_
|
| One of their single-use engines costs more than any SpaceX
| rocket... which are all reusable.
| Aloha wrote:
| Costs will come down - while yes, it'll still be more
| expensive because its a heavy lift vehicle - comparing it to
| SpaceX is comparing Apples and Wednesday.
|
| The way SpaceX does programatic accounting, and the way NASA
| does programatic accounting are I suspect, wildly different.
|
| NASA itself estimates costs of about 800m+ each (depending
| how you account for program overhead). Also, if SLS is used
| to launch stuff to LEO, its a cosmic waste of money. None of
| the Falcon rockets can really meet the program goals of SLS.
| syntaxing wrote:
| Aren't rockets to the moon vs LEO and GEO on completely
| different levels of requirements?
| criddell wrote:
| I'm curious about this too. Are any of the private
| companies anywhere near ready to send a ship to the moon
| and back?
| WWLink wrote:
| To send starship to the moon takes 5-10 more starships to
| refuel it first. Of course, comparing orion to starship is
| like comparing a dragon to the space shuttle. Starship is
| enormous and that's why it needs so much fuel lol.
|
| I'm not saying there's room for improvement, but I think
| people neg Artemis way too hard for what it is. And people
| give Starship too much credit for what it is (so far). (And
| I DO like the idea of Starship and hope it succeeds). If it
| succeeds things will be awesome!
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Assuming that's all true, it will only limit NASA if they force
| missions to use it.
|
| Europa Clipper is not, and that's a pretty big tell.
| panick21_ wrote:
| > Assuming that's all true, it will only limit NASA if they
| force missions to use it.
|
| That is literally why the Artemis program is designed as it
| is, the program is designed about the rocket and capsule,
| rather then the other way around.
|
| Many at NASA wanted a different architecture after Shuttle,
| but congress had no interest in that.
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Pigs may not be able to fly but soon we'll get proof of pork
| barrels being able to do so.
|
| What does SLS add to the already existing panoply of launchers,
| other than revenues for those companies which stood to lose out
| on the retirement of the Space Shuttle? Why is this thing set to
| dump SSMEs which were designed for reuse into the ocean after a
| single launch? Did they at least fix the problems with those
| o-rings which caused the loss of an orbiter before using
| derivatives of those SRBs on this launcher?
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| The shuttle o-rings were working exactly as designed. The
| shuttle management was full of bureaucracy that decided it
| needed to 'move fast and break things' and ignore known cold
| weather launch condition issues like failure of o-rings. The
| o-ring engineers/designers objected to the launch and refused
| to sign off on it, but they were overruled by management and
| ignored.
| UIUC_06 wrote:
| There is a presentation by Edward Tufte claiming that
| PowerPoint caused, in part, the shuttle disaster. Hang on...
|
| The claim is that PP's economy of words meant that the
| presentations to each level of management got more and more
| dismissive of the danger, the higher up the chain they went.
| Euphemisms got more and more bland, until the top people
| thought "screw it, we're launching."
|
| Note that I'm not endorsing that theory, since I haven't seen
| the slide decks that got used. It's disputed here:
| https://eagereyes.org/criticism/tufte-and-the-truth-about-
| th...
|
| I find that dismissal to be completely missing the point.
| Tufte wasn't arguing _physics_ , he was arguing that PP
| euphemisms caused top execs to minimize the danger.
| highwaylights wrote:
| Facts. Why this keeps getting swept under the rug
| successfully when there's first hand witness statements to
| back this up is beyond me.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| SpaceX and Blue Origin were nowhere near where they are today
| in terms of launch capacity, reliability, or reuse.
|
| The fact you're referencing "did they fix the defect from
| Challenger in 1986" tells me what I need to know.
| Vecr wrote:
| The seals were already somewhat fixed after the shuttle blew
| up. It would still be better not to have any seals at all and
| just have the boosters be one piece, but you would have to
| build a new factory (probably in a different state, can't have
| that!) to make them. It's probably mostly fine how it is.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Or you know, you could just not use solid rocket boosters at
| all. Solid rocket booster make absolutely no sense at all,
| they are only used because they represent a political
| interest.
|
| Note how there was no attempt at using them for Apollo and no
| new rocket company uses them.
|
| The only reason so many countries relay on them because it
| sharing costs with ICBMs.
|
| NASA own internal investigation suggested the same thing, but
| politics is more important.
| bryondowd wrote:
| If there's significant overlap with ICBMs I could see it
| being reasonable from the perspective of maintaining
| military production readiness.
|
| Imagine you need a bunch of people trained to do X, and
| machines capable of Y, in order to build your missiles, but
| you don't need many missiles right now, but if a war
| against a major power broke out you'd need to ramp up
| production massively and instantly. Either you keep making
| missiles you don't need, or you somehow train people and
| maintain machines without actually using them, either way
| you're spending just to maintain readiness for no immediate
| value. Or you find a close enough use where you can get
| some value by producing something similar enough that you
| can convert to military use rapidly.
|
| That wouldn't be so much political pork as actually
| practical. But I know little to nothing in this area, so
| just speculation.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Solid fuels have a limited shelf life. There is always
| low level production to replace expired rockets whether
| you use them or not.
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